Basic oil well cement is intended for use as a basic cement in oil wells from surface to 8,000 ft (2440 m) depth as manufactured or it can be used with accelerators and retarders to cover a wide range of well depths and temperatures. The American Petroleum Institute has defined basic oil well cement as a product obtained by grinding clinker (typically ASTM Type II) of moderate or high sulfate resistance consisting essentially of hydraulic calcium silicates to which no additions other than calcium sulfate or water or both are interground or blended with the clinker during manufacture.
Basic oil well cement is used in combination with water and, usually, retarder and/or other additives in various combinations to form a slurry which is pumped into the well. The slurry is directed to various areas or horizons in the well to perform specific functions such as cementing the oil well casing in the hole, strengthening and making impermeable certain incompetent strata, blocking oil, gas, or water flows or the like. The slurry is designed to perform a specific function at a specific set of temperature and pressure conditions, and the performance characteristics of the slurry are modified by the use of additives. In order for the slurry to work properly, the retarder and/or other additives and the cement must be compatible so that the slurry will not thicken unduly before it reaches the correct area of the well and so the slurry sets to a hard cementitious material at the proper time.
It is difficult to produce a basic oil well cement that is compatible with retarder under the wide range of field conditions even though a basic oil well cement may satisfy the API chemical and physical requirements. Basic hydraulic oil well cements can be unpredictable in their behavior with retarder or combinations of additives and the slurry performance can be badly impaired, thus causing problems or failures in cementing operations.
It has been known that the state of calcium sulfate in ordinary construction-type portland cement controls to a large extent the performance of those cements. It is known that the calcium sulfate can appear in portland cement in four or more forms, such as gypsum (CaSO.sub.4.2H.sub.2 O), hemihydrate (CaSO.sub.4.1/2H.sub.2 O), insoluble anhydrite (CaSO.sub.4) and soluble anhydrite (CaSO.sub.4). Calcium sulfate is generally added to cement as gypsum and/or natural anhydrite (insoluble CaSO.sub.4) as a set control agent.
The heat generated in the grinding process converts some or all of the gypsum to hemihydrate and perhaps converts some of the gypsum to soluble anhydrite. In ordinary construction cements, an overabundance of hemihydrate or soluble anhydrite will cause "false set" due to the re-hydration of these materials when water is added to the cement which reduces plasticity of concrete, requires extra water, and generally reduces performance. Too little hemihydrate may cause "flash setting" which renders the concrete virtually useless. It is known that insoluble anhydrite can be substituted for part of the gypsum in ordinary construction cements to control "false set", because insoluble anhydrite is already dehydrated and is a stable calcium sulfate not readily re-hydratable as is hemihydrate or soluble anhydrite. It is further known that insoluble anhydrite can completely replace gypsum to control the set of ordinary construction cement but has certain disadvantages.
In the case of basic oil well cements, however, thickening time as defined by API, not false set, or flash set, is the criterion which is used for the most part to judge and characterize acceptable performance. Furthermore, the slurry consistency, defined as "units of consistency" (U.sub.c) by API at various ages of the slurry under given conditions of temperature and pressure, is a critical criterion of performance. These slurry characteristics can be varied by the addition of retarders and certain additives in the correct amounts.